Plan to improve farm output

OUR CORRESPONDENT

Silchar, June 26: Japanese and Indian experts have set a deadline of April 2015 to formulate a masterplan for sustainable development of agriculture and irrigation system in Mizoram.

In the second meeting of the joint coordination committee of Japanese farm scientists and Mizoram experts held yesterday, the participants suggested the masterplan should aim at stepping up agricultural production in Mizoram so that 60 per cent of the food requirement can be met by 2035.

The rice output, the staple food of the people in Mizoram, which was 1,01,503 metric tonnes in 1995-96 has risen to 1,14,500 metric tonnes in 2013. But the produce can meet only 15 per cent of the food demand of a total population of 10.75 lakh people. Thus, the state is solely dependent on central supplies through the FCI to meet its demand.

The meeting of the committee was presided over by chief secretary L. Tochhong who lauded the dedicated devotion of the Japanese scientists as “exemplary”. She said their work would “act as a source of inspiration” for local farmers. S. Yamaoka, a farm scientist, is leading the team of Japanese experts.